Meat from calves as young as a week-old being sold in Karachi

KARACHI: A raid conducted by ARY News’ Zimmedar Kaun team along with Malir additional commissioner revealed that meat from young calves as young as a week old is being sold in Karachi, ARY News reported.

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According to details, the Zimmedar Kaun team led by Kamil Arif raided an illegal slaughter house located in Landhi area of the city and caught red-handed, some butchers involved in slaughtering young buffalo calves from nearby dairy farms and selling their meat.

“They were selling calves’ meat, we saved at least 150 buffalo calves from being slaughtered, the meat was being supplied to a number of restaurants in the name of mutton,” said Kamil Arif.

The raid revealed that the butchers were buying these calves for Rs1200 per calf and were selling their meat for about Rs400 per kilogram to different meat-selling points and restaurants.

When approached, Director Sindh Food Authority (SFA) Abrar Sheikh told ARY News that SFA is aware of the activity and has done several operations in the past to curb such activities.

He maintained that one such operation was done in the meat market around Karachi’s iconic Empress Market and it emerged that meat from such sick and young calves was being supplied in a huge quantity in such markets in the evening.

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The SFA director also said that slaughtering of such animals and selling their meat was declared illegal by the Sindh government and those violating the law will be dealt with an iron fist.

Meat from young calves is called veal and is legal in many countries if the calf is at least eight weeks old and is healthy. No country in the world allows a week-old and sick calves to be slaughtered.

It is pertinent to note here that earlier this week, the Sindh Food Authority (SFA) recovered at least 80 kilograms of expired meat from a top restaurant’s “secret store room” in Karachi.

The restaurant, which was already under investigation in a case pertaining to the death of two minors, had packaged meat expired in year 2015 stored in one of its godowns.

On November 11, the same restaurant was sealed after two minor brothers died after dining at the eatery and consuming sweets from a shop in an amusement park.